very carefully revised by the Comptroller General and the Auditor General even then amounted to $450,000. This has been since increased including all expenditure on it. It is quite time as remarked by me in my Despatch of last December that if subsidiary Coin be made with only 80 per cent of Silver instead of 90 here and in Europe on account of as in the case of Dollars we should have to go to the Mint to not less than $520,000.
Against that expenditure, the only profits received from the Mint have been $18,823 as explained in despatch No. 373 of last month. A portion of those profits consists only of the credit taken by the Mint for alloy silver in the subsidiary Coins struck for Government although a large portion of that coinage still lies unavailable in the Treasury in consequence of the unexpected difficulty of getting rid of it.
The profit made is incurred on a large outlay of interest on the silver employed. As the Seignorage charged has been reduced one half since last year, and is now only one per cent, a figure so low that it would require an annual coinage of 13 millions of dollars upwards of two millions merely to pay the Mint's current expenses.
The 18th of December.
53.